Prout's Station

The town formerly known as Prout or Prout’s Station is located in the north central portion of Oxford Township of Erie County.

A. W. Prout settled in this location in 1833, purchasing land from George Hollister and Isaac Mills for four dollars an acre. A. W. Prout was an agent of an early railroad line that operated in Oxford Township, and also served as the Postmaster of Prout’s Station. A Post Office was first established as “Wheatsboro Post Office” in 1812, and later operated as Prout Post Office (among other names) until Nov. 14, 1905.

In 1885 a mission church from the St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Milan was started at Prout’s Station. A school is found at Prout’s Station in the 1896 Erie County Atlas. In the 1920’s the Central Erie Supply and Elevator did a thriving business, handling an estimated six hundred thousand dollars in 1927.

James A. Ryan, in a 1928 Star Journal newspaper article called Frank J. Prout “one of Prout’s Station’s best known sons.” Frank J. Prout (shown below) was Superintendent of Sandusky City Schools from 1921 to 1939. Dr. Prout was appointed to the presidency of Bowling Green State University in 1939, and continued in that position until 1951. Prout Chapel on the BGSU campus is named for Dr. Frank Prout, while a women’s dormitory was named Alice Prout Hall, for his late wife.

Another Prout descendant, Charles Merz, son of Sakie Prout Merz, was the editor of the New York Times from 1938 until 1961. His editorials in opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's were influential on American thinking.

You can read James A. Ryan’s history of Prout’s Station from the October 6, 1928 Star Journal at the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library, where the Star Journal, Sandusky Register, and other newspapers are available on microfilm.